Hi All!
Sorry about the gap between posts - it's difficult to score a computer for long enough in a hostel to write anything of substance! Got a bit to catch up on so we'll try not to bore you with too many details, just the fun stuff.
Where we left off: Monteverde, Costa Rica. This place is great, it's really a town purely for tourists but is beautiful and fun enough that it doesn't matter. We took a canopy tour through the cloud forest, including an absolutely amazing Superman-style zipline that you strap into lying face down, you zoom about 80m from the valley floor for a full kilometre! Also went on a night walk where we spotted a big fat sloth very slowly eating leaves, a porcupine, a kinkaju and best of all a huge, flouro bright orange-kneed tarantula.
Next it was into Panama - we really rushed through this country unfortunately. We had a short stop in the pretty coffee-town of Boquete where we sampled deep-fried banana stuffed with mince! Then it was on to Panama City. We stayed in the interesting old section of the city for a couple of days before taking a 4WD trip across to the Carribean coast and the San Blas Islands. The islands are technically part of Panama but are completely self-governing by the Kuna people - they have their own laws and have managed to retain a relatively traditional way of life which is really interesting to experience. We stayed one night on a densely inhabited tiny island in the loft of a local's house. The most interesting thing about this house is the toilet - check out our newest pics (probably going up tonight) to see what I mean!
The next day we boarded the yacht Ave Maria along with four really nice English girls, a bearded and dreaded Aussie chef, a 71-year old partying couch surfer who buys and sells hundred-thousand-pound number plates in Scotland for a living, and our captain, Paul. The yacht itself is really nice, 50ft sailing boat that used to belong to the San Diego yacht club and once opened the America's Cup! We spent the next 5 days sailing through the San Blas, snorkelling every day and visiting tiny islands that were less than 100m in diameter. The water was amazing and we took a lot of gratuitous palm-leaning-over-water photos! Local Kuna people would paddle up to the boat in dugout canoes and sell langostines, octopus and tuna and we got to try the amazing local King Crabs! We saw a water spout (full-on tornado that sucks water up from the ocean!) and loads of dolphins.
Finally arrived in Colombia to what must be one of the most beautiful cities in the world - Cartagena - on coincidentally the biggest party of the year, their Carnaval. Had a great night out with everyone from the boat, visited a salsa bar, ate the best kebabs and sushi I've ever tasted and explored the beautiful and romantic Old Town. We also visited a volcano about an hour and a half outside of Cartagena - this was a pretty unique experience - it's basically a 15m mound full of lukewarm mud with the consistency of cream. You just sort of climb in and flounder around for a while! After the mud starts to freak you out a bit (it's kind of bottomless, and even though you float it's still weird) you climb back down to a lagoon. A little tiny local lady grabs you by the hand, drags you into the lagoon and literally strips off all your clothes and scrubs you down before you have a chance to react! I managed to keep my bikini bottoms on (washer lady was NOT happy) but Matt had no problems getting his whole kit off! It's really hard to describe properly so you'll have to wait for the photos and have a look!
A couple of days later we arrived in Salento, a small town in the Zona Cafetera (coffee district). This is probably one of the highlights of our trip - we hiked through a valley filled with huge tall wax palms to an elderly local couple's house. They give you a bowl of boiling water with dark chocolate pulverised into it, with a chunk of stinky cheese that you crumble into the chocolate and eat with a spoon! The lady has set up a bunch of feeders with sugar and water, and her garden is absolutely filled with hummingbirds - probably thirty around the feeders and maybe a couple of hundred in total. We took one of the bowls out of the feeder and the hummingbirds were landing on our arms and fingers to drink from the bowl. There was at least 6 different species, it was just amazing.
We are now in Bogota, the capital of Colombia, and are heading to the Ecuador border on a 23-hour bus tomorrow morning. Then it's on to Quito and a flight to the Galapagos Islands!
Sorry that was a bit of a long one, thanks for sticking with us if you've gotten this far! I hope all is good and everyone is happy and well.
Pura Vida!!
Matt & Ash
